The Irish standard., 1887-03-19

SILL NrE ON BIG HATS.
Ie Adds His Anathema to the Complain.
/ ing Chorus in the Back Row.
The late William Shakespeare once
wrote in an autograph album these
| words:
All the worlds stage.
! Sincerely your friend,
| WIN. SHAKESPEARE
Perhaps he meant that there were
flies on it-but we will not undertake
to enter this field of thought. How
ever, to speak in more serious vein
and treating the subject in more dig
nihed way, will state that after a
number of years scrutiny of the world
1 am convinced that the great bard
used this expression in a figurative
sense only. Could he pick up his pen
to-day he would either erase the above
line or add to it so that it would read:
Gall the worlds stage, and nobody but the
| woman in the high hat can see what is going on
| upon it. Yours bitterly, BILL"
! It is not new field, perhaps, this
discussion of the tall hat, but I desire
in my poor, weak way to add my testi-
mony to the testimony Of those who
have sat down on said hat. [ feel of a
truth-occqsionally-that this high hat
is making an old man of me and draw
ing lines Of care here and there over
my fair young face. Here at time
of life when I ought to be in the full
! flush and pride OF manhood find my
self no longer able to build the fire in
the morning. and my breath, which
tree, now comes in short pants.
The tall hat with q wad OF timothy
or fve-pound pompon at the apex
thereof, has brought this about. How
would man look who might sit in the
bald-headed row wearing a joint of
stovepipe on his head trimmed with
hay? Has it not been the custom for
years to place bald-headed men on the
front row, because they offered no OBJ
struction to the vision?
And now, what do we see?
We do not see any thing!
I will leave it to any disinterested
person to say whether ] do not love
and admire woman, whether aggre-
gated or segregated, but she does do
some things which as her friend and
admirer I deeply regret.
Not long ago J. had the pleasure Of
attending one of Mr.. Booths per-
fornances in which he took the part of
Hamlet with great credit to himself, as
I afterwards learned from O. member of
the orchestra who saw the whole per-
Torrance.
If had not promised a former wife
OF mine that would never touch liquor
/ would have been amply justified that
evening in saturating myself with bay
rum or some other seductive beverage.
paid large price week before
hand for 8 seat at the Hamlet per-
Torrance, because I had met Mr..
Booth once in the Rocky Mountains
and had made a deep impression on
him. had also told him that if he
ever happened to be in town where I
was lecturing I would dismiss any
audience to come and hear him, and he
might do as he thought best about
shutting up on the following night TO
come and hear me.
Well, noticed at first when went
in, that the row before me was un-
occupied, and gathered myself up in
strong, manly embrace, and Rugged
myself with Joy. The curtain bumped
itself, and the first act was about in
the act of producing itself, when 81
meek little gentleman, with AN air of
conscious guilt, came down the aisle in
advance of q woman's excursion, con-
sisting of four female members of his
family, l judged. He looked about
the house, timid]y took off his coat and
seemed to be preparing himself for the
vigilance committee. Then he sat
down to see whether executive Glenn
ency could do any thing for hin,.
The first woman of the four was
probably over forty, and yet with her
almost beardless face she looked
scarcely thirty-ejght. She wore a tall,
erect hat, with a sort of plume to it,
made by pulling the paint-brush tail
out of an iron-gray mule and dying it a
deep crimson.
She wore other clothing, but that did
not incense me so much as this hat,
which had to examine critically all
the evening.
She moved her head also, and kept
time to the music, and breathed hard
in places, and shuddered once or twice.
She also spoke to the miserable man
who brought her. Her voice was a
rich baritone, with a low xylophone
action, and she breathed like the pas
sionate exhaust of an overworked
freight engine. When she spoke to her
escort noticed that he shortened up
about four inches and seemed to wish
he had never entered society.
The other three women had broad
hats with domes to them, and the one
who sat on my right also sat on her
foot. This gave her fine opportunity
&c look out through the skylight Of the
opera-house now and then. The next
,ne to her wore deceased Plyn1outh
I'M